Products

Matchpoint Analyser
Overview

This
program will help you improve your matchpoint scores.
This program provides you with the means to track, to
analyze your ACBL matchpoint results, and to investigate
strengths and weaknesses of your bidding, playing and
defending skills. It will help you to identify areas of
concern in your bidding system (maybe those aggressive
pre-empts don’t work after all. Matchpoint Analyzer
will help to make you a better matchpoint player. This
is what it entails:

When you finish a hand at the
club or tournament and score up your result, take an
extra few seconds to complete a little more
information about the deal. The software provides
'worksheets' for this.

Later, when the scoring results
are known (often from the club website), record your
matchpoint score for each hand on the worksheet.

Using Matchpoint Analyzer,
update your matchpoint file for the new session.
This will take you 5 or 10 minutes. You might have
different files for different partners or bidding
systems.

Whenever you want to, analyze
the results to reinforce what a successful and
amazing player you are, and to highlight areas that
will help make you even more successful !

A sample worksheet is reproduced here. You can
print worksheets in 'booklet' mode, front and back. Here
you have just completed board 1. You declared, they
opened, the deal was contested (obviously here), the
opening bid was 1D, and you ended in a partial. After
the session is completed, you entered your matchpoint
score of 7. For that particular hand, no 'Themes' arose.
"Themes" are specialized elements of your
bridge game that you might want to investigate. Maybe
you like to open 3 bids with complete rubbish, and
you're curious what are your results when you open those
hands. So one of your Themes might be 'Rubbish
Preempts".

It will take several sessions for results to be
meaningful. The 'rarer' the item you want to
investigate, the more deals you will need.

A matchpoint file is a record of your matchpoint
results; essentially a database of results. You might
want to keep separate files for different partners or
bidding systems, or you might not. Matchpoint files are
saved to the 'matchpoint files' folder.

To open a matchpoint file, click File .. Open .. and to
see how this program works, first time choose test.txt.
Whenever you open a file, a copy is made in "matchpoint
files\backups", so the copy is your disaster
recovery should something weird happen during your
session.

(You can edit matchpoint .txt files with Notepad or
Wordpad or Word or any text editor. Make sure you save
as .txt files.)

This is what the opening screen looks like:

From the Update section on the right, note you are
averaging 57.8% over 308 deals, about 12 sessions of
bridge. You side has declared 152 hands, the opponents
156 hands, so it looks like you are about as aggressive
as your opponents in your battle for contracts. If you
had declared 140 and the opponents 168, that would be a
sign you might want to bid a little more.

When you declare, your matchpoint average is 60.3%.
When you defend it is 55.5%. That's probably a
significant difference and maybe you should discuss
defence with your partner(s).

You declared 61 hands, partner 91 hands. That's odd
on the surface, you would think they should be closer to
50-50. However you always sit East and your partner
West, and it seems like the boards at the club are
played in such a way that partner has more opportunities
to bid first, which means she is more likely to declare
when your side wins the battle. I would expect that
difference to grow smaller over a larger sample of
hands, especially if you switch sides. If that large
difference persists, your partner might be a ‘hand
hog’, and you should discuss. Or you are
subconsciously ‘steering’ hands so partner can
declare, and you should discuss that as well.

Note that when you declare, your matchpoint
average is 62.1%. When partner declares, it is
59.1%. That difference might or might not close with a
larger sample.

When your side opens the bidding, your matchpoint
average is 56.6%. When they open, it is 59.2%. That
difference might shrink with a larger sample, or maybe
it suggests you are not as active as you should be when
they open. Or maybe there is something in your bidding
system that needs tweaking.

Note you are interested in several 'themes', one
being '2M not bid'. You and your partner have decided to
open 'good' weak two-bids in first and second seat. Your
requirements for suit-quality are 'two of the top three
honors'. Partner with a missing top-three, will be able
to count six tricks (given not unfriendly breaks) in a
contract. This method works well when you actually open
2M, but you're interested in what happens on those deals
where you suspect the field will open 2M, but you cannot
because the suit-quality isn't there, so for those hands
you record a '2M not bid' theme. Maybe you find that
your 2M openers generate a 60% matchpoint average, a
good result, but your '2M not bid' generates a 45%
average, so you might need to look at your overall weak
two treatment.

Another theme is 'Raptor' which is a 1NT overcall
showing a 4M and a 5m. That's neat when it happens but
there is a downside ... you cannot overcall 1NT with a
'standard' balanced 15-17 count. So you investigate
another theme '(1N) not bid'. You are hoping you get a
good result for both themes combined. For many of
those '(1N) not bid' hands, you will find some action to
take.

Suppose you want to add some results. You have a
completed worksheet in front of you. For each deal,
highlight the Options you want to specify (yellow
listboxes .. see above Who Opened for example),
and write your matchpoint Result (green textboxes).
Usually your matchpoints will be a score like '7'. Make
sure you specify the correct 'Top', like '12'. You might
want to include a lot of information ... who opened what
bid, who declared, etc., or you might want to keep it
simpler, maybe just to compare to how you perform on
defence compared to offence.

The 'Themes' listbox allows you to keep tabs on
particulars that interest you. You can add and delete
themes at any time. Just remember that once you delete
one, all history is lost for it. Other themes might be
'lead from Jxxx', or 'Bergen 3M raise' or '1C transfers'
or '5-card two-bids'.

Now click "Add to Session". Your entry will
appear in the Session Display, although your matchpoint
file is not yet updated. Complete your entries for the
session. The textboxes #Entries and Cum. Avg will help
you to validate your session. Note when you have
finished updating your session, the Cum. Avg final
average, might differ from your actual session result by
a very small amount, for technical reasons.

When your entries are complete, and you want to update
your matchpoint file, click "Update".

You can view the file you are working with at View. You
can delete an entry.

The Update textboxes on the right, show some popular
results. For more precision, click "More
Analysis". You can select multiple options within a
list. For example, you might select Opening Bids 1C and
1NT.

If you don't care to distinguish between Opening Bids in
your analysis, select all of them. For example, if you
select 'I declared' and 'partner opened' and '1C' was
opened, to see all of the entries that contain those
choices, click 'All' for the remaining listboxes. There
are a few of those in the test.txt file.

You might be able to glean some interesting information
about how you play. Let's assume your overall matchpoint
result is 55%.

Does your side declare more
often than you defend? Maybe you declare 48% of the
time, and defend 52% .That would suggest you are
relatively conservative.

But that isn't necessarily bad.
Not if you declare with a 57% result (you are
getting to the right spot, often) and defend with a
53% result. Maybe your defence needs some work.

How strong is your declarer play
compared to partner?

How do you fare when the
opponents compete against you? Vice versa?

How relatively aggressive are
you? Do you compete as often when the opponents
declare, as they do when you declare?

What is your record bidding
slams? Maybe you should be more or less aggressive.

You decide to open weak two-bids
with just five-card length? How do they work for
you?

You decide to open constructive
weak two-bids (6-card suits, two of top three
honors.) How do they work for you? How do you fare
on the hands the field would open 2M, but you
cannot?

How to Use Themes

Here is the Themes window. The example file has 6
Themes, but you can track up to 50 which you can
specify.

A Theme is some aspect of your bridge game, the
results for which you would like to measure. It might be
related to bidding, or leads, or defensive signals, or
any other bridge event.

The frequency that your Themes arise, should not be
too rare. If the event occurs only 1 hand in a few
hundred (I always lead my ace against slams, or how
am I handling my 8-card suits), then you will need a
very large database of matchpoint results, for the
analysis to be meaningful.

The analysis given is a relative one. You know
your overall matchpoint average is, say 55%. You will
measure results for your Themes against that average. If
you open flaky 3-bids the likes of QTxxxx xxx xx xx, you
might create a Theme "Flaky 3-bids" and find,
over time, your results for those bids average 49%. And
if you do, you might decide to stop using them. Or maybe
they average 58% suggesting they work fine for you.

Perhaps a few examples would help explain the kinds
of investigations you can undertake. I play a weak
notrump system (11-14) with a favourite partner. We
include in our 1C opener, all other balanced hands, even
the likes of 3=3=5=2 shapes (but not 5-card majors). I
think this is a winning system, but I'm not sure. How
would I find out?

I think I must two opening bids in my analysis.
Obviously, when we declare, I include those hands where
we open 1NT. But I also should include those 15-17
balanced hands that strong-notrumpers would open
1NT, but we open 1C. It is far easier for your
opponents to interfere over 1C than 1NT. Simply using
the Opening Bid 1C won't represent very well, because
that opener includes unbalanced club holdings and ranges
outside 15-17 HCP.

So the solution is to create a Theme. I will call it
"1C balanced". Whenever I open 1C with a
balanced 15-17 hand, I'll note that in my session
update. Over time, deals with that theme will grow to a
point the results will be meaningful. Then when I want
to analyze our system, I include Opening Bids 1NT, plus
the 1C Balanced theme, and see what the matchpoint
results are. If they compare favorably to our overall
declarer matchpoint average, I think the system probably
is a good one. If not, maybe we need to switch to strong
notrumps.

Within your 1NT framework, you might be interested in
"what are our results when we open 1NT with 5422
hands" or "what are out results when we open
1NT with 5-card majors" or "what happens if
responder doesn't use Stayman with 4333 hands" or
"what happens if responder doesn't transfer with
5332 hands", or "what happens when we use our
Capp Killer defense".

There is a separate theme file, for each matchpoint
file you create.

Analyze Screen

Above is an example of a (very
small) matchpoint database. The 'THIS
analysis" valuations (bottom right) will
change, depending on what listbox selections you
make. This is the opening window, where you
begin with every option selected, and 'THIS
Analysis' is equivalent to the Overall analysis.

(Note the Themes which interest this
partnership. For example, "2M not bid"
refers to their weak two-bid style. This
partnership likes to open structured two-bids in
1st and 2nd seat (2 of top 3 honors). In doing
so, they cannot open some hands, that the field
probably will, so the partnership is interested
if this treatment works for them. Here they can
track their actual two-bid openings, and the
"2M not bid" T theme, and the results
for the combination should help them understand
if their approach is working well. The other
Themes refer to other interests they have.)

Above shows you how often they (your
opponents) played in slam or game.

Above shows how often your
opponents played in slam, where the auction was
contested.

How about this partnership's two-bid
treatment? They will want to know how well they
do when they open a two-bid, and how well they
do when they don't open a two-bid that the field
would probably open. Above you can see
this partnership opened 2H or 2S, 3 times for an
average matchpoint score of 66%. That's too
small a sample to be very meaningful, but it's
trending in the right directioon.

Above shows how they fared when they
did NOT open a weak two-bid, that the field
probably did. Of course you cannot know this for
certain, so some judgement is required. They
need 2 of the top 3 honors in their primary
suit, so partner can usually count on 6 tricks
if he has one of those honors. Say I hold AJ9xxx
Kxx xx xx. I would judge just about everyone
else in the field would open 2S with that hand,
so I'd Theme that hand with '2M not bid'. Note
the 60% matchpoint average is higher than our
overall average, so although the sample is
smallish, it's beginning to look like the
treatment is working for them (these are made-up
numbers by the way).

Above shows how we are doing with our
slam bidding.

Backups

There are two backup files. They have the same file
names as the original file.

One is created when you load a file (or 'save as' a
file). It is saved to the "\matchpoint files\loaded
backups\" folder. It is a copy of the file as you started
your session. If something really messy happens
during your session, and you wished you could cancel
everything you just did, you can restart by loading that
file.

For example, maybe you keep files for two partners.
You load BobsFile when you really wanted to open
NataliesFile, and you update for a 26-board session.
Yikes! But you can easily undo the mistake. Remember
that original BobsFile was saved as a backup when you
started your session. All you have to do is Open that
backup file in the "\matchpoint files\loaded
backups\" folder.

Another is automatically updated as you update/edit
your file. It is saved to the "\matchpoint
files\updated backups\" folder. If you're happy to
a certain point with your session, but want to 'undo'
something bad that just happened, or want to stop in the
middle of a session and restart later, you might want to
use that more current backup file.

Another way to correct errors is to View Entire File,
then Delete or Edit individual records.

Also, a matchpoint file can be edited with any text
editor or word processor, so you can make major edits
that way. Just be sure to save as .txt files.